Expert debunks Putin's lie about comparison of Oreshnik missile to nuclear bomb
Photo: Putin lies about the power of the Oreshnik missile (Getty Images)
Vladimir Putin's statements regarding the power of the missile he calls Oreshnik are not true. They are aimed at Ukraine's Western partners, states military expert, reserve major of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Oleksii Hetman in a comment to the RBC-Ukraine YouTube channel.
"Oreshnik comparable to nuclear weapons? A lie. It's not comparable," he said.
According to him, tactical nuclear weapons with small yields are measured in tons or tens of tons. This is not a very powerful nuclear explosion.
"In the grand scheme, he's (Putin - ed.) technically right, it can be compared to a nuclear explosion. But it can only be compared to the smallest yield nuclear explosion. It would be no more than an FAB-3000 or FAB-1500. Then you could also compare KABs and FABs to a nuclear explosion. A very small nuclear explosion," Hetman said.
As the expert pointed out, Putin presents it in a way that creates the impression that something extraordinary is about to happen. "There are already some specialists, some chemists, but for some reason, they're talking about physical properties," he added.
Hetman is convinced that Oreshnik was a military-political move aimed at influencing our partners, suggesting that it could attack any territory in Europe.
"And that it has no analogs, and that it’s impossible to intercept — this is all a lie. They could have made 5-6, 3-4, or 10 of these rockets, with a big margin. They're not mass-produced. To say that our air defense systems, or European ones, cannot strike them, is not true," said the expert.
Hetman believes that "there will still be strikes with this Oreshnik."
Putin's missile
On November 28, Vladimir Putin announced plans to launch a new strike with a ballistic missile, which he calls Oreshnik, against Ukraine.
"It could target military facilities, defense and industrial enterprises, decision-making centers in Kyiv," he said.
Putin stated that "according to military and technical experts, in the case of a mass group launch of these missiles, meaning several missiles in one strike, its power, the power of this strike, will be comparable to the use of nuclear weapons."
On November 21, Russia struck Dnipro with a ballistic missile. Following that, Putin claimed that this was supposedly a new missile called Oreshnik. He also threatened that Russia could strike military targets in the US, the UK, and France.
